a Weekend in Cebu Lead to Tequila…… a belated birthday celebration to my surprise from Marge and her best friend and some nice citizen of Cebu becoming the proud new owner of my iPhone 13….. and no it wasn’t a gift.
turns out in Cebu police don’t really care about stolen mobiles as it happens by the 100’s daily in the city so the paperwork involved in this type of petty crime is not worth the paperwork…. so lets see what tower travel insurance say to that.
The great think with Apple is the device is now locked and pending remote to erase so as soon the Meth head who decided he needed a unusable phone and boots it up to a Wi-Fi network it should be rendered useless…. hopefully
Monday was like any typical day Marge and i had booked a Ferry from Cebu Pier one to Bohol Island.
Bohol Island is located around 100 KM south of Cebu and is more of a tourist destination.
when booking the ferry i had 2 options….. Jet Cat or lite shipping
Jet Cat was around 1000 peso’s a ticket and offered a journey time of 2 Hours
Lite Shipping was half the price at 500 and offered a transit time of 4 hours.
i thought long and hard about it and i said to myself, what would my Scottish father decide?…..
the cheaper ride it is!
leaving the hotel at around 11AM would allow me just over an hour to get to the ferry terminal and i had to take a slight detour past a mall to a North Face shop i had found earlier to upgrade Gerald’s Ride (backpack) with lugging around 7-8KGs of Camera and lenses i had finally outgrown the North Face Backpack i purchased in London of July 2018.
i had all my gear with me and I hopped in a taxi and Marge Asked the driver to navigate to the Southern S&M mall which appears to be about the same size of the one in Manila the ride takes around 25 minutes in Pre-Lunchtime traffic. traveling across the express way i look down to the waters below and there is a a sea of rubbish getting pushed up against the retaining walls below that create a fake shoreline.
back from this there is a low decile housing area made of rusting wrought iron and warped chipboard reminding me of what poverty lies beneath the bowels of the city.
when we arrive at the mall for a 10 Minute stop, marge waits in the taxi and i take Gerald into the mall
North Face is located on the Second floor and then is a left from the top of the stair way and boom big red and white logo approaches in the distant.
the transaction takes around 15 minutes of me unloading all my gear and packing it into different backpacks to ascertain what is going to suffice, the backpack i choose is the worst possible colour… light great, but this offers an extra 3L of space which doesn’t sound like a lot but it does allow for my camera bag to fit in the bottom of the bag without squashing everything else around it.
back in the cab the meter has been left running and at the Crippling price of 2 peso per-minute we now owe the Taxi Driver a whopping 50 cents New Zealand.
The Pier is about 800 Meters out of the Mall and as we leave the Taxi Drive tells us that on Saturday there was a suicide off the roof of the mall from a man, who’s girlfriend invited him out to the mall to break up with him….. grim I know.
the Ferry Terminal is packed with travelers going to all locations across the southern coast line of the Main Island, luckily our tickets were issues electronically so a quick walk through a security checkpoint and we make way towards our boat.
the Lite Ferry’s boat soon becomes apparent the the cheaper ticket price is because this ferry is used for transportation of Freight as well as passengers, we walk up the boarding ramp at the rear of the boat and show the tickets to a man sitting in a sailors uniform smoking a cigarette looking at his mobile.
he takes note of our booking reference, and then cross references this with a printed off spreadsheet we are told our seats are 319 and 320… what i didn’t know is this was not seats… and more like bunks with vinyl mattresses.
on the first level of the boat their is around is around 60 bunks all numbered with a mixture of tourists and locals lying down sweating in the harbour, the side of the boat is open and there is no Air Conditioning.
the boat was expected to leave at around 1PM and the time was currently 12:30, both marge and i made comment that we should have got water and snacks for the journey but the instructions were explicit that you had to be upon the boat at 12:30 no later!
we sat there patiently and melted in the heat…. and i mean melted, it was like being poached in your own sweat and body heat, the clock arrived at 1PM ….. nothing …..2PM…. nothing… and finally at 3PM we started hearing the main cargo hold being closed.
Marge looked at me and without her even saying a word, that cutting glare you get from a women says it all…..and I could hear the words in her head loud and clear “why didn’t you just book the fast ferry you idiot!”.
running 2 hours behind schedule was no problem we were in no hurry to get to Bohol, however the 2 hours on the boat stuck at port with no air movement through the boat and 120 People all radiating head was defiantly an inconvenience.
the boat ride was simple and text book, the open ocean here in the Philippines is very calm… in some cases almost like glass.
i spent most of my time reading my 3rd novel of the trip by Greg Iles (how appropriate traveling in the islands). marge slept on the bunk above me looking like a stroke victim in the heat.
As sunset approached at 6PM i took the opportunity to try and get a nice sunset photo, however in perfect form of the tropics the clouds were rolling into the bays and blocking the red, orange, blues and purples of the sunset.
the Ferry Arrives into the port of Tagbilaran City at around 7:30, next we have to go through vaccine control to prove that we:
A- who we say we are
B-we are fully vaccinated withing accordance to Filipino travel laws
most places would do this before you leave original port not at arrival port….but here we like to do things backwards.
our location is a Glamping hotel out of the main city up by Alona beach, it takes around 30 Minutes in a Trike to get there and is hidden away in the bush lands of the island.
Glamping is not something i have ever tried, mainly because Camping i have always classed as rubbish….. when it comes to Camping here is what i find the most off-putting .. particularly in New Zealand.
-the Bed…. hard
-sleeping bag smells Musky
-cooking facilities shared
-toiled usually looks like a Gas Station bathroom in Milton
nothing to get excited about… oh and then you have that one group of bogans with their Diesel Generator partying until 3AM and you hear about how Kyle cheated on Kristy and she is now crying…. but by 1 Am all is forgiven and they play “wagon wheel” by Darius Ruker and “country roads” by John Denver
this is normally followed by the copious amount for Woo Girls until the sun rises….
now tell me how a majority of New Zealand find that environment attractive for “a Family Holiday”???
so Glamping….. What is it …. well it is luxurious Camping… so absolutely nothing like what i mentioned above!.
Glamping Alona :
https://www.facebook.com/GlampingAlona/
is hidden away down a dark gravel road which gives off a vibe of Axe Murder/ or organ harvesting area of Alona. at night there isn’t much to see except trust the System of the Trike driver taking us to the correct address.
at the end of the gravel access way there is a blue rusty gate that could fit a well sized car through it.
the Driver unloads us and we pay him the $20 NZD for the ride from the port up to the Alona district.
there is a dimly lit door bell switch duct taped to the concrete plaster foundation.
a nice Gentleman by the name of Augustin who is Spanish by origin and is actually a friend of Marge’s, the have nice formalities and we make our way into the compound.
the Area is well lit by Fairy Lights and their is a pool to one end of the compound, 6 A Frame Bungalows are located at the Eastern end of the property which are all illuminated by LED Strip lighting.
towards the centre of the property is a giant Bamboo structure that towers around 5.5 Meters houses the
Reception, Bar Area, Pool table and loft area with hammocks.
The most important thing about this area is Augustin’s 2 Labradors, one white and one black which are basically the head of customer relations.
its 8:45PM so we sit down with a beer and order some Filipino food from their live in chef and play some pool until its time to call it a night and retire to the bungalow that sleeps 6 but only 2 beds will be used for this cabin tonight.
this quote i found rather applicable to the economic climate we are all facing.
“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples’ money.”
Margaret Thatcher- British Prime Minister 1979-1990
Quantum Entanglement 